The Insider's Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs

Conclusion

What separates exemplary management of funded projects from merely adequate management? In a word, anticipation. Those program officers who merely react to events are better than those who practice fire-and-forget grantmaking, of course, but they are still guilty of failing to get the most out of a project. If you anticipate needs, head off troubles, and foresee opportunities, you will succeed in converting more of the project's potential into actual outcomes. Your anticipating in this way is the ultimate in adding value, for doing so costs the foundation nothing that it would not be spending anyway. The grant is already made. You will receive your salary in any case. But if some of your time is devoted to anticipatory management, ...